


Meet You at the End of the World

by Comicsohwhyohwhy



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Has No Chill, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Anger Management, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Nor Does Ronan Lynch Have Any, While Falling In Love, oh boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22039198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Comicsohwhyohwhy/pseuds/Comicsohwhyohwhy
Summary: Adam Parrish is supposed to attend a meditation retreat to center himself. This would be a lot easier if there weren't a really hot guy doing an anger management course right next door.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 41
Kudos: 394





	Meet You at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinealightonme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/gifts).



> This is a birthday present for toast, and all I can say is: hey, I got the year right, even if I missed the month by... 6 months? Ahhh life!  
> This is really dumb and I hope you enjoy it :). Can't believe I wrote non-magical AU for you.
> 
> This is also sorta inspired by Fleabag, Season 1, Episode 4.

Going inward sounds like a horrible, horrible idea.

Adam fidgets as the voice drones on: “This weekend will be a wonderful experience for you. Here at Arche Meditation Center, we are dedicated to you finding yourself, once you tune out all the noise. We will guide you through two days of meditation, mindfulness and full acceptance of body and soul.”

There’s a break, and Adam can hear around twenty people shifting, sighing and coughing. Then the woman who introduced herself as Persephone continues. “Which is why our silence policy is very strict. All the public areas are spaces of peace and mindfulness. You may of course talk if you get called in by us or need to come to us to settle any problems – but we hope there won’t be any.”

Adam thinks this whole retreat is already shaping up to be a problem in itself. His legs hurt from sitting cross-legged on the flimsy little cushion, and everyone around him seems to either be decades older or millions richer than him, or both at the same time. Why is he doing this again?

Right. Because he needs to be cleared for work again. Because he lost control.

Adam firmly closes the door on that particular train of thought.

“Let us begin with a simple meditation. Let your eyes close slowly and naturally.”

Adam squeezes his eyes shut.

“Relax all the little muscles around your eyes. Imagine that your face is a soft towel and you smooth out all the wrinkles.”

There does in fact seem to be some tension in his face and forehead. Adam tries to relax the scrunched up muscles and ends up opening his eyes again by accident. The woman who introduced herself as Calla is staring at him judgmentally, as if she had known just who to watch closely during this exercise. As if she had known he would certainly fail after just one look at him. Adam swallows and closes his eyes again. He doesn’t feel any more relaxed than before.

What if they’ll consider him too unstable for his job. What if it was all for nothing, all the nights he spent working, all the money he only barely managed to save to go to University, the years at med school…

“Life can be a struggle and we must learn to be warriors. We will help you find your strength. But a warrior is only as strong as his or her ability to relax, to calm the mind and the body.”

Adam does not feel calm, especially not now that his nose starts itching. He tries to sneeze quietly, but it’s still louder than he anticipated in the complete silence of the spacious room. He doesn’t dare open his eyes again to check who is looking at him. He doesn’t think he can take more of Calla’s glowering.

Persephone doesn’t acknowledge his sneeze in any way. “We will continue this meditation in complete silence, to guide you into your weekend. Focus on your breathing, hear it crest and fall like a wave that leads you to inner peace.”

There’s a lot of labored breathing in the absolute silence that follows. Adam wets his lips, then he tries to observe his breathing. But clearly his breathing doesn’t like being observed, because it just… stops working the moment Adam focuses on it. His chest feels tight and Adam gets the urge to just get up and run as he wiggles a bit on his ridiculous cushion, trying hard to take a proper breath that somehow gets stuck somewhere in his throat. That’s not how things should go. Breathing is an automatic bodily function, goddamnit. He vows to watch a tutorial on how to breathe properly when meditating on youtube later in his room. Except then he remembers that this place _doesn’t have internet_.

In the distance, someone yells, _“CUUUUUUUUUUUNT!!!”_

Adam opens his eyes again. He looks around, but no one else seems to find anything about that very odd. Everyone looks as if they have already ascended to new levels of warrior-peace, including Persephone, and, worryingly enough, even Calla, who seems able to go from ‘will cut you if you get too close’ to being so zen that Adam isn’t quite sure she isn’t just asleep in a matter of minutes. Maybe this is what staying at this retreat too long does to you.

Adam closes his eyes again, but his body seems to have forgotten how everything works now, and his mind pretends that none of this has anything to do with it. When he finally finds a comfortable seat, he can’t breathe anymore and almost panics, then he feels the tension in his forehead and just as he manages to relax it, he notices that his hands are clenched and sweaty.

It’s a relief when Persephone finally hits a tiny gong and motions to them to follow her into the gardens.

*****

Adam did not expect glorified free labor to be part of this weekend that he paid way too much for, but this is how things are now apparently.

He’s on his hands and knees and pulls out a tiny helpless weed from the paved driveway that leads to the Arche-villa, trying to focus on the perfection of the cosmos as it expresses itself in the tiniest details, or something, when he hears it again, closer this time.

“FUCKING AAAAAAAAAAAAAASSHOOOLEEEE!!”

Adam looks around, but still − no one seems particularly bothered by this kind of decidedly hostile addition to their weeding experiences. His fellow peace seekers keep on crawling down the driveway slowly, stopping here and there to kill innocent plants, undisturbed and serene. Clearly they don’t fail at being calm warriors as much as he does.

The sounds seem to come from the guesthouse to the left, a handsome white building in the shadow of tall trees. He frowns, then he gets up slowly without drawing any attention. He wanders down the drive without anyone stopping him and crosses a meadow in the direction of the guesthouse.

The windows are wide open and he can see a group of people standing in the hall on the ground level.

“You’re a fucking DISGRACE, you dumb SLUT!”

“Well done, Trevor. Well done!”

Adam frowns. This bears investigation. He carefully opens the door and takes a few steps into the entrance hall, then stops within seeing range of the group, ducking behind a big plant so he won’t be seen himself. No one turns around and notices him, because everyone is too busy applauding the guy who’s apparently called Trevor. Trevor, slightly chubby and in a colorful sweater that looks decidedly too warm for the season, looks bashful, but pleased.

He stands in the middle of the group, and next to him is a face- and sexless mannequin made of white plastic that apparently just got yelled at. Then a guy with a heap of shiny, black, precariously styled hair, sharp cheekbones and a very glittery t-shirt speaks up.

“In order to manage your anger successfully, it is important to process the situations that set you on edge. Trevor here just gave us a concise reenactment of his loss of control, and now we will analyze it together in order to help Trevor avoid such situations in the future. Ronan, how do you engage with what Trevor just showed us?”

Everyone’s eyes turn to a very hot guy with a shaved head, clad all in tight black leather that flatters his muscular figure. He has his arms crossed over his chest and his face does not promise peaceful analysis.

“I think Trevor’s a dick.”

Trevor’s mouth falls open. Adam thinks he sees stylish guys’ lips twitch, as if he only barely suppressed a smile, but then he slips his perfect coach-mask back on. “Now, Ronan, this is not the sort of language we use here. After all, we are in this together, all struggling with the same issues.”

Ronan snorts. “You clearly aren’t, or you’d have punched some of those losers long ago.”

Now hipster guy looks a little harrassed. He cards a hand through his hair. It must come away all sticky from all the hair gel. “Would you mind having a word in private?”

Ronan looks mutinous. “Don’t need to tell you in private that Trevor’s a dickhead for verbally abusing his new co-worker just because she made a mistake.”

Trevor looks to the floor in obvious shame, and coach guy sighs. “Please excuse us. I will mediate between Ronan and Trevor outside.”

Adam only just manages to duck out before the coach, a nervous Trevor and a Ronan who looks ready to show him how proper yelling works stumble over him. He quickly walks around the guesthouse, then takes the long way back around to the driveway of the main villa.

There’s still a group of people in plain clothes that Adam thinks might cost more than his monthly salary on hands and knees there. He sees Persephone walk towards him airily, and he quickly drops to the floor. Persephone smiles at him beatifically as he tries to focus on the pervasive beauty of the world, apparently happy with his dedication. But his mind keeps wandering back to the group in the house next door, to shiny shirts and black leather.

***

In the late afternoon and after hours more of weeding and sitting around in silent circles, Adam finally gets some time off to “explore his inner self in solitude”. When the door falls shut behind him, he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Then he properly looks around his room for the first time since he arrived early in the morning, only to be dragged off to orientation immediately. It is modestly furnished, all simple wood and white sheets, but it’s still nicer than a lot of the places Adam’s lived in. The view over the park is rather spectacular. He takes off his shirt, lets himself fall onto the bed and closes his eyes. There’s a faint throbbing behind his left eye, announcing a migraine. To relax, he tries to focus on his breathing again. It still feels like shit, because apparently he’s terrible at adequately performing basic bodily functions. He sighs, gets up and puts a headphone into his good ear, then settles back on the bed.

The physics podcast calms him down almost immediately, and to his own surprise he notices himself slowly dozing off. It’s not something he usually indulges in, but on the soft bed, his body begs him to give in to the impulse, to let it rest, and after a short struggle Adam lets go. Maybe this will help ward off the migraine.

He’s having confused, colorful dreams, somewhere between stressful and nice; he’s back at the hospital, running down corridors, but that means he hasn’t lost his job… Then there’s a loud pounding that goes right through his dream and the lulling tones of his podcast into his skull, makes a home there and _hurts_. It sounds like someone is hitting the wall of the house right where Adam’s room is. Grumpily, he opens his eyes. It doesn’t stop, and there’s the throbbing behind his eyes again. He gets up slowly and groggily, then goes to the window and looks out into the back garden.

There’s black leather guy from the anger management thing, and he’s hitting a punching bag that he has fastened to a tree. Every time his fists collide with it, it collides with the wall right outside of Adam’s room even though the distance is considerable, because that’s how much strength he puts into every blow. Adam stares for a moment, then he loses his cool.

“Hey!”

Hot guy looks up and his eyes are altogether too blue, but not in a nice way. He doesn’t say anything, just musters Adam deliberately, provocatively raking his eyes up and down his body, or at least the part of it that’s visible in the window, including the hands that Adam has clenched on the railing. He looks like he doesn’t approve of what he sees.

Adam feels himself grow nervous and cards a hand through his mussed hair. Shit, he’s only wearing his undershirt because he hasn’t bothered to put his shirt back on before investigating where the noise came from. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What do you think _you’re_ doing? Aren’t you nerds forbidden from talking?”

“Us nerds?”

“You lame silent retreat people.” Ronan cocks a disdainful eyebrow. Adam feels himself blister with the sudden need to defend a retreat he has so far hated every minute of.

“We’re allowed to talk if there’s problems.”

Now Ronan gives him a half-smile while his eyes remain cold. It’s both devilishly attractive and incredibly annoying. “And this is _a problem_ for Mr. I-am-so-spoiled-I-pay-people-so-that-I-can-do-weeding-for-them?”

Adam just gapes at him for one second. Then he tries to focus on his breathing, in and out, like the sea… But his breathing sounds like a _very angry_ wave. “That’s rich, coming from the guy whose problem apparently is abusing people for no reason.”

Ronan crosses his arms. “Why do you think you got me all figured out, spoiled boy?”

“I saw your group. Yelling ‘slut’ at a mannequin. You’re Ronan.”

Ronan’s lip curls. “You did not see me do that.”

Adam relents. “Okay, but it’s what your group is about, right? Look, I don’t care. But could you please not do your clearly ineffective anger management right outside my room?”

“I have every right to be here. This park belongs to the villa and the guesthouse. Maybe you should just join me instead of complaining. You look like you could need it.”

Adam massages his temples. “I am not going to _join_ you, you’re the one who apparently needs to beat shit up. I’m asking you nicely to just _fucking choose another spot_!”

Before Ronan can answer, Adam hears the gong that means he’s expected at the evening meditation, and dinner after. “I have to go. I’ll see you later. Or hopefully I won’t.”

Ronan makes a disdainful sound and turns from Adam. Adam shakes his head in frustration, then he closes the window and throws on his shirt.

***

He’s finally in his room again. The headache is slowly growing. Adam wonders if meditating, if his pathetic attempts can be called that, actually worsened things because it’s so much effort for him. He’s seeing dark spots and his limbs feel heavy and exhausted. He swallows some painkillers before he gets ready for bed.

When he tries to flush the toilet, nothing happens. He tries it a few more times, but the thing remains stubbornly unresponsive. Adam sighs, then opens the toilet tank. It seems that the flapper is jammed, which should be an easy fix. Adam reaches in, and after a few tugs, he tries to flush again while adjusting the flapper.

He pulls too hard, his whole body tense, his mind annoyed and exhausted, and the flapper breaks. The toilet overflows immediately.

“Shit shit _shit_!” Adam yanks the overflow tube, and after a few seconds that feel like hours, the flow stops. But now his bathroom is flooded.

For a minute, Adam just stays there, face buried in his hands. Then he gets up and leaves the bathroom, peels off his wet socks, puts on his shoes and slowly starts his walk of shame to the reception.

Once he’s done explaining, the receptionist looks extremely sheepish, even though none of this is her fault. “We are very sorry, Mr. Parrish. We can only have the toilet repaired after the weekend. Until then, we can provide alternative accommodation for you. You should find it perfectly satisfactory.”

****

The room in the guesthouse is clean and cozy, if somewhat smaller than the one at the villa, and Adam falls into bed almost immediately, the headache still just a dull background throbbing because of the pain meds. There’s no thought of breathing exercises, just the tantalizing prospect of rest.

Which he gets, until he is abruptly woken by some ungodly noise. It sounds like someone is torturing a chimpanzee in the room next to his. Adam blearily opens one eye, then the other. He feels knackered. Outside, he sees the very beginnings of dawn. He checks his phone − it’s five am, way too early for animal cruelty.

Reluctantly, Adam throws on a jacket and ventures outside. He shivers in the early morning air. There’s only one other room in this corner of the guesthouse, and it’s clearly where the ruckus comes from. He knocks cautiously.

No reaction.

He knocks again, more forcefully.

The door flies open and Adam takes a startled step back. There’s Ronan, still clad in his leathery outfit, as if he hadn’t slept a minute. He looks tempestuous, an odd mix of fragility and anger on his face. He doesn’t seem to immediately recognize Adam, his eyes dark and wild. “ _What._ ”

“… What are you doing in there?”

Recognition dawns on Ronan’s face, and he looks surprised to see Adam there. “What are _you_ doing here, esoteric boy? Are you following me around now?”

For one moment, Adam considers telling him that he isn’t actually esoteric, that he hates this retreat and that all he wants is _to be cleared for work_. But this seems like too much effort, and why should he even care about Ronan’s opinion of him. “Flooded my bathroom while trying to fix the toilet. Got the room next door now.”

Ronan grins abruptly, his face all sharp, dangerous angles. “Didn’t figure you were the hands-on type. As for your question: It’s Grindcore. It calms me down enormously.”

“It sounds like animal torture.”

“And you would know about animal torture, would you?”

“No. But I know about people needing sleep.”

Ronan cocks his head to the side. He still has his shit-eating grin on. “Music is a powerful stress-relief. Henry has given me official permission to do this.”

“Henry?”

“The coach.”

“So you’re telling me I have to take this up with the coach?”

“Sure. I bet he’ll love you waking him up at five in the morning.”

“ _You_ woke me up at five in the morning! I got a fucking migraine, okay?” Adam knows that he sounds more brittle than he’d like, but he’s so freaking _tired_.

Ronan seems about to retort something sharp and cutting, but then he seems to stop himself, rubs the back of his neck and casts his eyes down. “I didn’t know anyone was in the room next door.”

This sounds like admitting defeat. “So would you please try and keep it down?”

Ronan smirks. Apparently Adam was too optimistic. “No. I need to work on my anger. It’s what I’m here for. Sorry.”

Adam groans. “Look, I hate being here already, okay? Why are you determined to make things even worse for me?”

“ _You_ hate being here? You’re doing a fucking overrated wellness retreat.”

Adam wants to smash something. “It’s not wellness for me, you shithead.”

Ronan raises his hands placatingly and makes a mock surprised face. “Oh, the aggression! I think I need a time out from this in order to process things, or my anger might overwhelm me. It’s a great technique Henry taught us. I am unable to continue this conversation right now. Talk to you in a few minutes.”

Adam stares as Ronan proceeds to just stand there in the door, unmoving, like a sexy black rock. This is… this is… Adam doesn’t know what this is, but somehow, his anger has dissipated. Instead, he feels the urge to laugh at how _ridiculous_ this is. He can’t quite stop his lips from twitching upwards, and to his surprise he sees the same expression mirrored back at him from Ronan’s face.

He doesn’t actually anticipate the next words that leave his mouth, but he’s tired and achy and Ronan is hot and nothing matters, not as long as he doesn’t get cleared for work again. “So you don’t want to sleep? Fine. If you insist on assaulting my one hearing ear, I can’t sleep either. Want to chat instead?”

Ronan’s eyebrows shoot up, and Adam doesn’t quite know why he just admitted to his hearing loss. But he can’t take it back now, and thankfully, Ronan doesn’t ask him anything. He just nods tersely and walks back into his room, leaving the door open for Adam.

****

Ronan’s room is a mess. Adam wonders if he really managed to clutter it like that in only one day, or if his anger management class takes longer than Adam’s meditation retreat. There’s clothes everywhere, and magazines, and what looks like a case with pipes in it under his bed. Adam takes a closer look at a stack of cheap paperback novels on the nightstand. He laughs in disbelief.

“You read ridiculous romance novels.”

Ronan glowers at him. “So what? Some of them are really good.”

Adam flips through the titles. “ _The Tower of Desire_. _Bound by Passion_. _Night Mischief_. Sure, they sound like masterpieces.”

“Still better than that Kama Sutra-shit that you probably read.”

“Do you even know what Kama Sutra is?”

“Whatever, some Buddhist meditation shit.”

“… That is alarmingly inaccurate on so many levels. Well, at any rate, your choice of reading material explains a lot. If that were what I read I’d be angry all the time too.”

“Look who’s talking. At least I’m not an uptight mess of a guy who has nothing better to do than _finding himself_.”

Adam smiles sardonically. “You got me all figured out for a guy that doesn’t even know my name yet.”

Ronan lets himself fall onto his bed, and he motions for Adam to sit down next to him. “Am I wrong though?”

“Oh, rest assured that I have better things to do with my life than attending meditation retreats, usually.”

Ronan scoffs. “Glad to hear it, because you suck at it. You can’t even sit still.”

“Am I that obvious?”

Ronan just quirks an eyebrow, then indicates Adam’s hands, and Adam notices that he’s been clenching and unclenching them in his lap, as if he were trying to wring out an invisible towel. He swallows and makes an effort to relax them.

He had not pegged Ronan as that perceptive.

“You should let out some of that tension.”

Adam sighs and closes his eyes. “Believe me, I know.”

“You’re doing it again.” Adam startles when he feels the gentle touch of a hand on his, stilling the frantic movement there. He stares down at his lap, at Ronan’s hand on his, warm as a furnace and slightly calloused. When Ronan lets go, Adam misses the touch immediately. Ronan bites his lip, then clears his throat. His dark lashes cast shadows onto his sharp cheekbones. “So what _is_ your name?”

Adam grins. “Okay. You do care about some social conventions at least, if a bit later than most people. I’m Adam. Adam Parrish.”

Ronan seems to try the name out in his mind, then he nods, looking satisfied. “Ronan Lynch. And why are you really here, if you hate it so much?”

“You tell me first. You’re clearly not enjoying yourself.”

“Oh, annoying you is enjoyable alright.”

“Not doing a good job right now. And don’t evade my question.”

“Alright. Employer forced me.”

“Where do you work?”

“At the zoo.”

“You work _at the zoo_ and somehow managed to get forced into anger management classes? Did you yell at some flamingos?”

Ronan scowls. “I would never. It’s the fucking visitors that get to me.”

“Sure, understandable, how dare those fuckers pay your salary with their visits.”

Ronan glowers more, but this time he very deliberately directs it at Adam. He has impressively sharp eyes and angry eyebrows, but the expression has lost some of its novelty effect. Adam only smiles pleasantly in reply. “They are assholes. Fucking use the flash on their phones even though it’s forbidden and scares the birds. Knock against the glass until the apes are on edge. They deserve to be told off.”

“That is… surprisingly considerate of you. For the animals, at least.”

“What, you think just because some asshole forced me to take shitty, useless anger management classes I can’t be nice and considerate?”

Adam considers this for a moment. Ronan says it with bravado, but there’s something uncertain on his face as he waits for an answer. “No. I just thought you didn’t like people very much. But I guess that nothing that you just told me contradicts that.”

Ronan breathes out audibly. Some tension seems to seep from his shoulders. “No, it doesn’t.”

They sit next to one another for a few minutes, in companionable silence, and Adam thinks he could probably doze off right now if only he let himself fall back onto the bed, no terrible ‘music’ to disturb him…

“So what about you?”

Damnit. Of course. Ronan expects him to reciprocate. A truth for a truth.

_Warrior strength. Calm. Peace. Focus on your breathing._

It doesn’t help. Adam’s throat constricts. What if it was all for nothing because he can’t function like a normal human being, still can’t leave that trailer behind –

“Employer too.”

“Who’s your employer?”

“Hospital. I’m a medical intern.”

“And why did they send you here?”

“I fucked up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Adam can feel Ronan looking at him. He focuses on his own hands, now neatly folded in his laps. The knuckles are only barely white. He’s getting better at this “relax your muscles”-thing. But all the tiredness he felt only seconds before has dissipated, and in its place there’s an anxious kind of tension.

“Okay. Wanna run around the house? Exercise is great for anger management and you don’t want me to call you a cunt all of a sudden, do you.”

“What, _now_?”

Ronan’s sharp grin is back. “Sure. No time like the present, the early bird catches the worm etcetera.”

“You’re insane.”

“Says the guy who breaks his toilet on a meditation retreat just because he’s too controlling to call in someone who actually knows how to fix it.”

Adam gives Ronan a weak smile. A run _does_ sound nice, or at least it sounds like it might stop Adam from feeling as if he were actively dying with no way out, just a past wasted and a future full of failure. “Okay. But I should put on some real clothes first.”

****

Adam does not end up changing out of his pajamas. They run around the house, and it is ridiculous, and Adam laughs when Ronan slips on the grass and tumbles down gracelessly, but then Ronan manages to topple Adam and they are both on the grass, breathless, no space for any unwanted thoughts.

They are still sitting outside when Adam sees Persephone approach to call him to morning meditation. She doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that Adam is just lying outside in his pajamas and a jacket. And if he’s honest, Adam wouldn’t care either way, because he feels more relaxed than he has in months. Not even meditating can ruin that.

****

Meditation is over, as is breakfast, and now Adam is weeding again. He hates every second of it, now even more than the day before, because _how many hours do they have to do this_. It does not make him feel like a warrior, it certainly does not make him feel at peace, and if he’s supposed to find beauty in the little details then it’d be much more promising to stare into Ronan’s blue eyes some more.

He really needs to stop thinking stuff like that.

But Ronan does not intend to make it easy for him, as much as that is clear. He keeps jogging around Adam in the park, pretending to not even notice him, even though his trajectories are so obviously deliberately chosen that Adam wonders if any of his fellow peace seekers notice. Ronan has his earphones in, and Adam can hear the unholy noise of what seems to be shitty EDM this time even from this distance. He can also see the way Ronan’s arms glisten with sweat, the way his muscles work under the tight tank top he’s wearing…

Adam shakes his head as if to chase off a fly. _Focus on the weeds. The weeds!_

Then Ronan disappears, probably called in for another lesson. And for a while, Adam almost succeeds at just… not thinking much. He is still tired, but his headache has lessened, and he manages to slip into a state of serene indifference, just him, his rake and the little green adversaries.

Until someone touches his shoulder. Adam yelps and drops the rake. It takes him a second to recognize Ronan standing there, and even then his breathing doesn’t quite calm down, because Ronan is holding an enormous and dangerous looking axe.

Ronan seems startled at Adam’s reaction, then he follows Adam’s eyes to the axe and he looks guilty. He waves it in what he seems to think is a friendly, unthreatening manner.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. We’re building shit this afternoon. Another way of ‘managing anger’.”

Adam wills his breathing to calm down, and this time he succeeds. “What are you building?”

Ronan grins. “I’m not building. I’m fucking shit up for everyone else. I mean, they need the raw materials, right? I’m the destroyer.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Of course you are.”

“I got something for you though. Knock at my door in the afternoon and I’ll show you before your evening meditation thing?”

Adam’s eyebrows draw together. “You got something for me?”

Ronan looks down at his shoes, caught off guard by Adam’s reaction. “That a problem? I think you’ll have fun.”

“I doubt that I consider anything that you enjoy ‘fun’.”

“Didn’t look that way this morning.”

Adam relents. “Alright, I’ll drop by. And now you should leave. Authorities are on their way.”

Ronan turns and sees Persephone and Calla stalk towards them – or Calla is stalking, while Persephone is floating, as always. He rolls his eyes expressively, then he fucking _winks_ at Adam and turns to go. “See you later then, stay all mindful and shit.”

Ronan is already out of reach when the women catch up with Adam. Calla looks at him scathingly. “This is a _silent_ retreat, Mr. Parrish. We do not want to have to punish you for transgressions.”

Adam almost laughs. “ _Punish?_ ”

Persephone pipes up. “The only true punishment is not developing your feelings of compassion and love for others while you are here, Mr. Parrish. But if you keep on violating our rules, we will be forced to exclude you from the rest of our retreat.”

Adam picks his rake back up, and instead of answering he just goes back to work. There’s certain advantages to not being allowed to speak.

****

Ronan immediately opens the door when Adam knocks. He has a manic glint in his eyes and he has swapped the axe for a club that he’s leaning on.

“Parrish. I prepared everything outside.”

“This is the least reassuring thing anyone’s ever said to me. Do you plan on axe-murdering me?”

“This look like an axe to you?”

“It was a metonymy.”

“That’s not a metonymy, smartass,” and Adam be damned, apparently Ronan has paid attention in school despite his ‘fuck the system’ looks and attitude.

“You think Kama Sutra is about meditation, but you know what metonymies are?”

“I have hidden depths. Now stop stalling and come.”

Adam sighs, but he can’t deny that he’s curious. Ronan leads them into the little woods that begin behind the guesthouse. He walks fast, until he stops so suddenly that Adam walks into him from behind. They are in a tiny clearing, and there, strapped to a tree, is the mannequin that Adam has seen the anger management workshop use. He swallows.

“Ta-da!”

Ronan sounds proud, and Adam doesn’t know why – he only knows there’s a faint sense of dread creeping up his back.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

Ronan holds out the club to him. “Your personal anger management workshop. So you hate meditation? This is your chance to join the other side and start screaming instead.”

Adam doesn’t take the club.

“It’s good to let it out. That’s what Henry says, we did this for hours on the first day. Can’t just bottle shit up.”

Adam feels cold. Ronan doesn’t seem to notice.

“Come on, man. This’ll be good for you, get rid of that fucking tension. You seem like you’re about to explode all the time underneath that uptight act you put on.”

Adam doesn’t move. He thinks maybe he has stopped breathing.

Ronan looks a bit surprised at Adam’s reluctance, then he turns around and smashes the club into the mannequin. There’s a horrible crunching noise as it collides with the arm of the mannequin, but the hit leaves no trace. Adam can’t tear his eyes off the white, unblemished figure, off the club that swings back in Ronan’s hand, innocently, no harm done –

_The boy has a sprained wrist, and it’s the middle of the night and Adam is so tired he can barely stand after taking on extra hours for days, and there’s the boy’s father, and it’s almost cartoonish, like someone created him specifically to fuck with Adam, a big, colorless man whose boozy breath makes Adam feel woozy –_

_„Unfortunately, I will have to ask you to pay for the treatment directly, as your son is not insured −”_

_“Fuck, he only ever causes problems. Wish his useless slut of a mother had known to take the pill −”_

_− His hand hurts and there’s yelling all around him and someone drags him into a room and closes the door –_

_The resident psychiatrist gives him a concerned look, she’s kind and she’s always liked him but she doesn’t know what to do this time –_

_“Dispensation −”_

_“But I need to work –”_

_“Sort your head out first, Adam. You seem on edge all the time. There’s a place I can recommend. First, you take a break there, then we talk and evaluate and clear you for work again −”_

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and someone – Ronan – says “hey, Parrish,” but Adam can’t listen, he turns away from the clearing, away from the mannequin, and then he runs.

***

Adam doesn’t know how much time passes. He gets to his room, closes the door behind him, ignores the repeated knocking, Ronan’s soft voice calling for him. After a long while, Ronan gives up, and Adam is finally truly alone.

As he slowly comes back to his body, back to the present, there’s white hot shame waiting for him.

He behaved like a lunatic. Ronan wanted to help him, do him a favor, and he lost it.

He doesn’t know what to do.

So he stays on his bed, hearing ear buried in the mattress, face averted from the window. He watches as the sunset makes a red reflection on the walls of his room, then everything slowly fades to black.

****

There’s another soft knock, and another voice, female this time.

“Mr. Parrish?”

It’s time to get up. Adam’s legs still feel wobbly.

Persephone looks serene, as always. “May I come in?”

Adam steps aside without a word. Persephone looks around his room, then sits down in a chair and motions for Adam to do the same on the bed. Adam doesn’t really know why he does it, why he behaves like an obedient child, but somehow, Persephone’s demeanor says that not only is there no point in resisting, there is also a pretty good chance that whatever she wants you to do will be better for you than any choices you might make for yourself.

“We noticed you were missing at dinner and at our joyful last meditation session before.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

Persephone hums. “The body requires nourishment, even when the mind is full.”

“I am packing my things now. I will eat when I get back home.”

Persephone inclines her head. “We know you joined us because of problems at your job.”

Adam swallows. Of course the psychiatrist would have mentioned this when she registered him. But this is not a conversation he wants to have. He remains stubbornly silent. Persephone seems undeterred.

“Mr. Parrish, I want to tell you something. When I was younger, my mind was all over the place. I tried to find myself in silence, but all I found was something I hated, and I held onto that.”

Adam looks at his hands. He unclenches them with care, finger by finger, places them on his legs carefully, as if the parts of his body were a fragile thing.

“But then I found something I had never been looking for: companionship. I found Calla and with her, I found my voice. And only much later was I able to come back to myself and not hate what I found there.”

Adam looks up and meets Persephone’s kind eyes. She gets up, walks over to Adam and puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Almost by reflex, he puts his own hand on top.

“I don’t think this is the place for you. I don’t think you need more silence in your life right now. So I will give you the paper you need from us, confirming your attendance, and then you will go out into the world. And when we see you again, you will be able to meet yourself in silence and not hate what you find.”

Persephone turns to leave, but then she faces Adam again and holds out a piece of paper. “Oh, and the polite young man next door asked me to give you this.”

****

Packing doesn’t take long. Adam does it slowly, deliberately, savoring the tiredness of his body and mind. It’s so much better than the fear. So much better than the anger.

When Adam walks down the drive, he sees a man standing at the end of it, a tall, broad silhouette. He knows who is waiting for him, probably to tell him what a shithead he is for reacting like that to what was meant to be a nice gesture. Ronan asked him to meet him there, after all, in surprisingly neat handwriting. Adam squares his shoulders. He deserves this. He can take it.

But Ronan doesn’t look angry. He looks despondent, and guilty, and more vulnerable than Adam has seen him so far.

“Adam.”

Adam should probably take control of this situation before it becomes any more awkward. “I’m sorry.”

Ronan looks confused. “What for?”

“For freaking out on you.”

Ronan makes a quiet noise at the back of his throat, then he shakes his head. “You’re not the one who has to apologize, okay? I tried to force you into something.”

“You meant well. You couldn’t have known.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that it was shitty.”

Adam sighs, then he indicates a bench at the very edge of the park. He doesn’t exactly want to do this, but he can’t let Ronan leave like that, looking like a dog that was kicked by its owner. “Let’s sit down? I owe you an explanation. I think.”

They walk the short distance in silence, then Adam leans his head against the bench and looks up at the dark sky. Better get it over with. He speaks in a low monotone. “I punched a guy in the face. At the hospital. That’s why I was sent here by a psychiatrist. To ‘center myself’ or something.”

Ronan looks at him in astonishment. “Shit, Parrish. What happened?”

“Guy brought his son in. Disparaged him in front of me. I just… lost it.”

Ronan wrinkles his nose in obvious disdain. “Well, he sounds like a dick. And you did the right thing.”

“No, I didn’t. This helped no one. Maybe this made him angrier. Maybe he took it out on the boy.”

“Hey. Don’t even think that.”

He hasn’t talked about this for too long, to anyone, and now the words pile up without much conscious input, pressing against his lips until he lets them out. “I know how this works, Ronan.”

For a fleeting moment, there’s a bright realization followed by burning anger on Ronan’s face, but he quickly replaces it with the same even-tempered expression that he wore before. “Then you check up on the family when you’re back at work.”

“What if they don’t clear me for work? What if they think I’m unstable?”

Ronan looks at him searchingly. “They won’t. But do you think you are?”

“I… I thought I wasn’t. I was doing well, for a long time. But I just don’t know anymore.”

Ronan doesn’t speak for a while, apparently mulling something over. Then he sighs. “Look, I’m fucked up in the head, okay? My family’s a mess, at least the half of it that’s still alive, and I get along better with animals than people. Aren’t most people unstable in some way?”

“Ronan, I am sorry.”

“Not the point. What I’m saying is, maybe you just need a little time to, I dunno, just not hate yourself for this. You punched a dickhead in the face, so what. Worse things have happened.”

Adam squeezes his eyes shut, then he tries to smooth out the muscles in his skin, like a soft towel, but it doesn’t work, nothing ever works. He buries his head in his hands instead. “Fuck. I am always so _angry_. Why is everything so hard?”

“Wouldn’t be as sexy if it was soft.”

Adam removes his hands and stares at Ronan in disbelief. “You really thought this was the right time for a joke. An incredibly bad sex joke.”

Ronan sheepishly shrugs one shoulder. “You can’t always bottle shit up, right?”

Adam punches him in the shoulder. “We can’t all yell at flamingos, okay.”

“Hey, I told you I’d never do that!”

Adam looks back up at the sky. “I just don’t know what to do.”

He feels Ronan’s hand on his. “Maybe you don’t have to know, at least now right now. I sure don’t know what I’m doing most of the time.”

“Reassuring.”

“But I like my animals. I’d like to show you my flamingos.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

Ronan grins. “If you want it to be.”

Adam shakes his head fondly, then he leans in to kiss Ronan. For a moment he doesn’t reciprocate, apparently caught by surprise even though he literally just joked about showing Adam his dick; but then he kisses back, and Adam feels his own breathing speed up, but this time it isn’t out of anxiety. This time his hands clench in Ronan’s shirt, pulling him closer, and Ronan comes willingly, giving as good as he gets. When they separate again, Ronan cradles Adam’s face for a moment, his eyes soft.

“You know, so I suck at teaching you anger management, right. But maybe you could teach me meditation instead?”

Adam laughs. “Sure, I’m great at it.”

“So what. Sucking together is fun. Sucking –”

“Don’t you dare say it.”

Now they are both grinning, and for a while, they just look at each other. The silence between them is companionable, and Adam feels himself calm down, his breathing evening out. Maybe Ronan is right and things will be alright. This isn’t the end of the world. He will get cleared for work, and he will figure his shit out. Positive thinking and all that.

“Another suggestion. How about next time we just go diving for a weekend or something. Sounds more useful to me than whatever we’ve both been doing here. And sharks are amazing.”

Adam raises his eyebrows. “True, who needs introspection when they can try to not get eaten by a shark instead. I’m sure it puts things into perspective.”

“Don’t talk shit about sharks. I’m warning you. I will force you to listen to more Grindcore.”

“Not worried. Still hung up on the part where you seem to think that ‘going diving amidst sharks’ is an appropriate first date.”

Ronan gets up and holds out his hand. “We still stuck at first date? Okay, alternative suggestion: let’s go for burgers right now.”

Adam playfully slaps his hand away. “Not sure my purified chakras can handle that.”

Ronan’s grin is sharp and kind and fearless. “You can handle a lot, Parrish. Just wait and see.”

Adam sighs dramatically, though he ruins the effect with his huge grin, and then he follows Ronan out of the property and onto a road that suddenly seems full of promises.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a [tumblr post](https://comicsohwhyohwhy.tumblr.com/post/189964555388/meet-you-at-the-end-of-the-world) that you can reblog if you like it!


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